


Everything Stays

by cecilantro



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 03:56:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14584425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilantro/pseuds/cecilantro
Summary: Aloneis good, is nice, the quiet and calm is enjoyable.Lonelyis hell, and Caleb will never let his heart feel that way again.





	Everything Stays

The downtime for Caleb is an odd amalgam of relief and loneliness, he’s gotten so used to the constant company that it’s weird and jarring to spend time away. Fjord and Jester disappear individually on their own errands, Beau and Yasha duck out together whenever Molly isn’t pawing at his old family’s attentions, even Nott takes her leave and absconds from his side.   
Caleb is a fan of being alone, of the quiet and calm and not being overrun with chucklefucks drinking themself stupid and snorting powdered mushroom that, apparently, gives you ethereal sight for hours at a time.   
That’s scribbled down on a notebook of Caleb’s, actually. Ethereal sight, or truesight? There’s no real way to test it without a comparison, or  _ knowing _ about some hidden door, illusion.   
The quiet and lonesome was nice, for a while. For a day or two.   
Now it’s lonely. And  _ Gods fuck _ , Caleb does not want to be lonely. It’s horrifying, the feeling creeps up like the cold fills you from the ass out sitting on a stone wall. Icy fingertips draw gentle, terrifying patterns up his spine, it’s slow, but when it reaches the spot between his shoulder blades and threatens his heart- that’s when he snaps the notebook closed and stands, because it’s creeping closer, and he can’t let the ice-cold loneliness take his heart again, who knows how long it will take it to thaw.   
He makes for the closest room. Fjord and Molly’s.   
He knocks, harder than he usually would, he’s shaking a little, and there’s no answer. The chill edge seeps closer and he’s off to the girls’ room instead, the door is unlocked there, but nobody is home.   
If he’d stopped, if he’d thought, even Wessik may have helped to chase away the chill but he’s not working today, there’s no bond with the human woman working there now and she can’t help him. Like they’re on separate planes, he inclines his head to her respectfully, and she nods back, but they’re worlds, worlds apart.   
There’s nobody at their table.   
Caleb wants to stop and think, Zadash is a big place, where, where could he go? He knows he won’t be able to find his team before he freezes himself out, they’re too far scattered and trying to hide.  _ Away from him _ .    
The chill edges ever closer. He can feel the freeze in his arteries. It  _ hurts _ .   
Pumat Sol! The thought comes like lightning, and no, Pumat Sol can’t be counted as a friend by any stretch but he’s someone that Caleb has any kind of relationship with, and the Nein frequent the Invulnerable Vagrant, perhaps there will be a Pumat free to talk with him about what spells he should purchase the next time he is able to afford it.   
He takes three steps in the direction of the Pentamarket before Mollymauk walks into him.   
And with that sudden thump comes the smell of lavender and the rush of relief, Caleb is forced to swallow down tears as he steps back, sudden force, and looks up to meet Molly’s eyes.   
“Oh! Caleb! I was just coming to find you, Yasha found a book that she thought you’d… Caleb?”   
Molly breaks off of his brief ramble and takes hold of Caleb’s chin, pre-emptive, Caleb curses internally that Molly knows him so well as to know he’d drop his eyes to the floor. He can’t escape now, and tries very hard to blink away the few tears that have burned their way through before Molly notices.   
He fails, of course.   
Molly releases his chin and takes a step back for the comfort of distance, sweeps around Caleb with space between them, but holds his hand out as he goes. Contact comes on Caleb’s terms, Molly understands this.   
Caleb is tentative as he reaches out, and just before Molly’s trailing fingers leave his reach, he catches them, and Molly smiles and pauses whilst Caleb collects himself and laces their fingers for the grounding contact of it. 

  
Molly guides him by the hand upstairs, he looks briefly between Caleb and the door to his and Nott’s room, then leads him past, unlocks the door of the room he shares with Fjord.   
Frumpkin is coming along behind Caleb’s ankles, and Molly pauses with the door open, it’s an awkward bend but he leans down and ruffles the fur on the cat’s head.   
“Don’t know if you’ll still listen to me, but worth a shot: Could you find Fjord for me, please, dear Frumpkin?”   
Frumpkin mewls, something like exasperation, and rubs at Molly’s hand briefly before turning tail. Molly smiles as he leaves, he knows that it’s deliberate that Frumpkin obeys him, as much as Molly has insisted on throwing him around. He’s learning, slowly, that Frumpkin is far more familiar than he is a pet, he just needs to ask.   
Caleb gives him an odd look when he straightens back up, something that Molly’s cold reading techniques can’t quite narrow down, and that’s unnerving in itself.   
“What’s wrong, Caleb?” Molly asks as he pulls Caleb the last of the short distance to his bed and sits him down, wanders around working on stripping down a little, just the boots and the coat, that’s all.   
He comes up beside the bed, Caleb hasn’t replied and is busy fiddling with his cuff, so Molly shoves his shoulder gently.   
“Coat, darling, it’s impolite to wear it inside.”   
Caleb stands to shrug it off, and Molly hangs it within arm’s reach on the end of the bed.   
Molly stops him with a hand between his shoulder blades before he can sit, and Caleb goes to arch away but freezes, momentarily, and presses back, much to Molly’s surprise.   
Where Molly’s lukewarm hands push against Caleb’s back, he feels that creeping chill of loneliness fade away, like Caleb is defrosting, the ice crystals melt back into liquid relief.   
Molly may not understand all of what’s going on in Caleb’s head right now, but he sure as fuck understands touch starvation, though it’s a hard problem to rectify without Caleb looking at him. Can’t read for reactions without facial expressions, can’t ask for permission when Caleb would deny himself water if it wasn’t forced down his throat.   
He shifts the hand from Caleb’s back to his waist as he moves around him, settles both hands on Caleb’s hips and sits him firmly on the bed, it’s a rough ride making sure there’s always a point of contact but he makes it, sits cross-legged next to the wizard. There’s a hand on Caleb’s back and Molly watches as he tries hard not to push into it. And sighs.   
“You know that you can ask for the things you need, Caleb? I don’t hold grudges and I can’t count for shit, there’s no such thing as debt between carnival members, there is no debt in family.”   
And Caleb is unused to this, so much so that the concept hurts to tears, he fights them off but a few get loose.   
Molly loses any semblance of restraint, he straight up  _ lifts _ Caleb, so that he can settle the wizard’s legs, slung over his own, as he wraps Caleb up into a big, tight hug. Caleb shatters into him, still warring with himself, but pulls his arms up and loosely around Molly anyway.    
“You need my attention? You ask for it. You need this?” The last isn’t a rhetorical, it’s genuine, it’s a few seconds before he feels Caleb nod against his shoulder, silent, damp. Molly smiles, a little, “Then it’s yours, Caleb, any time. Hell, you can climb into bed with me if you need to! Fjord’s had me do that a few times, it helps a  _ lot _ with the nightmares.”   
Caleb stills.   
“How do you know about my nightmares?”   
Molly chuckles and shrugs,   
“I didn’t, I do now. I have them too, you know, turns out waking up in your own shallow grave gives a person a hell of a traumatic event to revisit when they’re asleep.”   
Caleb starts to stutter out an apology, and Molly squishes him silent.   
“I wasn’t shooting to make you feel bad, love, just an explanation. And I do mean it, if you want my key to this room, you can have it.”   
Caleb’s breath, his body, shudders under Molly’s arms and he squishes again.   
“You have problems, let me help you solve them. My time, my attention, it’s all yours if you need it.  _ I’m _ yours, if you need me.”   
“I need you.” It’s so quiet that Molly might have missed it, if it hadn’t been  _ exactly _ what he wanted to hear.   
“In what way?” Molly turns so he can press his face into the crook of Caleb’s neck, there’s so many hairline boundaries they’re traipsing now, all it would take is one push one way or the other to make or break everything they’ve worked for, and in lives like theirs, even the small starts are new starts, they’re hard and can burn out so fast.   
Caleb can’t find words for a reply, but pulls and weighs on Molly until they both sink down, Caleb’s boots are kicked off and they lie entwined.    
The chill of loneliness is gone from Caleb now, he feels airy, more filled with gas lighter than air and it’s all gone to his head. Unreality haze has set in, this must be a dream, Molly doesn’t feel quite solid under his fingertips he ghosts over the curve of Molly’s jaw as he draws back to take in the vision of his face.   
“How do you need me, Caleb? What do you need from me?”   
“Just you.” Caleb’s voice is so sure, he’d shock himself if he could process it correctly but he can’t, he just knows that he’s right and that he’s determined. He leans in and how quickly space can close even when he feels planes apart from the tiefling in his arms.   
And then he’s kissing Mollymauk Tealeaf, and after the first blink of shock, Molly is kissing him back. Fingers tangle loosely in Caleb’s hair, clean now, from blood, soot, ash, sweat, the hand cups around the back of his head to hold his thoughts in, because Caleb was beginning to haze his way out of his own outline, his thoughts and personally spreading like cheap ink into cheaper paper, bleeding away, and Molly’s touch brings the ink back in again, layered on the surface like charcoal, smudges easily but block colours. He turns from black-and-white to brightly coloured as the world refocuses and he’s  _ kissing Molly _ , he’s on Molly’s bed and they’re all cuddled up and kissing and Molly pulls back to breathe.   
“Never known you to be so bold.” Molly smiles, and Caleb panics.   
“I’m sorry.” is all he manages, and Molly hushes as he pushes Caleb’s unruly hair out of his face, somehow more wild when it’s clean and fluffy than when he’s been quite literally dragged through a hedge backwards.   
“If it’s just a kiss, that’s fine. We don’t have to talk about this again.” Molly says, his voice is so gentle, his touch so light, as though Caleb is glass and he might break again. “If it isn’t… if there’s more to it, that’s fine too. That we  _ will  _ have to talk about, though.”   
Caleb presses his cheek up against Molly’s hand, sighs.   
“It was not  _ just _ a kiss.” he admits, and that’s as far as he gets before the door opens to Fjord, and they both sit up, lightning quick.   
Frumpkin jumps up onto the bed and cuddles up around Caleb, who fusses him affectionately.   
“Oh, good job!” Molly praises, and scratches Frumpkin’s chin, looks to Fjord. He’s staring, panting, looks between them.   
“Fuckin’ cat was so insistent, I thought somethin’ was wrong. I thought you’d been hurt or someone’d tried to kill you, Caleb, are you okay?”   
Caleb opens his mouth to reply but Molly waves a hand airily, beckons Fjord toward them.   
“He’ll be fine when you get over here and join in this cuddle huddle. Come on.”   
Caleb actually laughs, a little as he settles in against Molly’s shoulder and the bed dips under Fjord’s weight as he, awkwardly, joins in, some jostling and jiggling and they manage to make something of a Frumpkin sandwich. Molly kisses at Caleb’s cheek.   
“Any time, Caleb, remember?”   
Caleb butts his head gently at Molly’s cheek,cat-like.   
“Thank you.”


End file.
